Indie motorsport excitement

October 1, 2015October 1, 2015

Driver market: Jensen to continue at McLaren

There have been some whimsical ideas about Jensen Button’s future. Most romantic was a return to Williams where he started his F1 career. But really it was always going to be a choice between retirement and another year with the Honda powered McLaren. This is so underpowered and Button and Alonso have been so far behind the leaders that retirement has been the most likely. But Button has been persuaded to stay on. His experience will be vital in the continued development of the Honda-McLaren package. But surely they are too far behind to achieve very much next season.

It looks as though Jensen will have one more year of drifting around at the back, while hopefully developing a car that will be able to challenge again in 2017. But it has to be unlikely that he will be one of the drivers retained to enjoy the (hopefully) more powerful 2017 iteration. At least F1 can say goodbye to a long-serving driver properly over the year.